Techniques for Selling Antiques and Collectibles

Is your house getting smaller? Of course not. But your living space may be shrinking, thanks to the ever-increasing numbers of objects you're dragging into it.

If that's the case, you aren't alone. More and more Americans are insulating their homes with antiques and collectibles. In some cases, people are living under "a virtual avalanche of clutter," as the Associated Press put it in a 2005 report.

Maybe it's time to start selling off some of the unwanted or unnecessary possessions that are crowding you. Heck, even if your living space is organized enough to make Felix Unger proud, you may be itching for a little more elbow room.

Internet auctions, of course, have made the task of selling our "stuff" far simpler than in the prehistoric days of the 1980s and earlier. As we've learned from online auction sites, there's a buyer for everything. (I proved that point to myself early on. Around seven years ago, I accidentally cracked my Beach Boys Endless Summer CD. The jewel box and booklet were fine, but the disc was unplayable. On a lark, I did a search at a few sites and found a Yahoo! Auctions seller offering an Endless Summer CD — by itself, without jewel box — for $1. A perfect marriage!)

If there are takers for everything you're tripping over in your home, the trick is to find 'em. Simple, right? Just throw your listings up at eBay and let its users (222 million of them, worldwide) do their thing.

Well, not exactly. Certain types of items are great for eBay, but with others, you'll have more success (as in, higher selling prices) by going through a specialized auction house.

If you're looking to sell off some of those back issues of Sports Illustrated, your vast postcard collection, or your Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford political pins, eBay and similar sites make good options. But if you've inherited Aunt Wilma's collection of art pottery and Uncle Fred's stash of antique Hubley cast-iron trucks, cars, and wagons, think twice about where you offer them. You might be better off consigning your items to a specialty auctioneer — unless, of course, you're extremely knowledgeable about what you're selling, and you understand the jargon of a particular market, and you have the time to write smooth descriptions that will convince bidders to bite, and you're pretty good with a digital camera…and on it goes.

To maximize the sale of Aunt Wilma's collection, houses such as Rago Auctions of Lambertville, N.J. and Cincinnati Art Galleries of Cincinnati stand a better chance of matching your art pottery with qualified buyers. And toy specialists, for example, Noel Barrett Auctions of Carversville, Pa., and Bertoia Auctions of Vineland, N.J., will forge a more direct path to the right owners for your Hubley treasures.

"If you don't know what you have, or how to describe it, or how to photograph it, you're at the mercy of the buyers on eBay," said J. Michael Flanigan, a longtime Baltimore-based antiques dealer who specializes in furniture. "As a buyer, I tend to limit my spending to a certain amount; beyond that figure, I'm afraid to buy. I've found that I can't always trust the seller's description or knowledge. When you can't rely on the seller, it keeps the price down."

On the other hand, said Flanigan, "if you go to a David Rago, or a Noel Barrett, or a Wes Cowan, not only do they know what it is you're selling, but they know who's going to buy it. (Cowan owns Cowan Auctions, a Cincinnati-based specialist in folk art, Americana and military items.)

"Everybody thinks eBay is a super-efficient marketplace that brings people together," Flanigan adds. "But these specialty auction houses know the players in their markets and how much they'll spend, and they'll set a reasonable reserve price."

Karen Augusta of Antiques Lace & Fashion in N. Westminster, Vt., agrees. "A specialty auction house already has the clients, whether you're talking about pottery, jewelry, dresses, or whatever," she said.

Augusta teams up with Charles A. Whitaker Auction Co. in New Hope, Pa., in selling vintage couture, clothing, lace and textiles. In her category, she says, a seller has to "know how to describe a piece of vintage clothing, how to display it on the right mannequin, how to photograph it. He or she also has to know why it's valuable. Even if you're a collector, you might not know all the minutiae about an item."

Special Delivery

Here's a selective list of specialty auctioneers who specialize in various categories.
AMERICANA and FOLK ART
Wes Cowan, Cowan's Auctions: Also handles antique photographs and documents, military collectibles, and furniture. Click on the "How to Buy/Sell" link for the basics on consigning your items.
Ken Farmer, KF Auctions: Click on "Auction Process" for a Q & A on how to consign.

COUTURE and TEXTILES
Carolyn Ashleigh, Carolyn Ashleigh Associates: Look for the "Selling" link for consignment directions.
Karen Augusta, Charles A. Whitaker Auction Co.: Click on "About Us" for contact information.

POSTERS, PHOTOGRAPHS and PRINTS
Nicholas Lowry, Swann Galleries: The "Buying and Selling" link starts you on your way if you're interested in consigning.

POTTERY and ART GLASS
Riley Humler, Cincinnati Art Galleries: Click on "Consign" for selling information. You'll also find useful "Prices We Are Paying" pages that list hundreds of makers and artist.
David Rago, Rago Auctions: Click on "Buying and Selling" and then "Selling" for information on how to consign.

SPORTS MEMORABILIA
Phil Weiss, Philip Weiss Auctions: Contact information for consignments appears at the bottom of the home page.

TOYS and DOLLS
Noel Barrett, Noel Barrett Auctions: The "Appraisals" link invites queries from potential sellers.
Jeanne Bertoia, Bertoia Auctions: Click on "Consignments" for the lowdown on selling your vintage toys and dolls.

The Dollars are in the Details
And it's the minutiae that can make the difference between a gem in disguise and a five-figure sale. A recent find illustrates Augusta's point.

"I just catalogued a collection of antique clothing a woman had bought mostly at thrift shops. Among the dresses was a red silk evening gown that didn't have a label; it was missing part of the lining. There was something special about it that kept nagging at me, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Finally, I found an example of the dress in a book: It's a 1957 Christian Dior ball gown by the influential French designer Christian Dior [1905-1957]," she continues. "Even with the missing label, it will sell for at least $10,000-$15,000 at auction, and that's a conservative estimate.

"The woman who brought in the red gown was thrilled," Augusta adds. "She thought about trying to sell her collection herself, but she had 1,000 items and finally realized, 'When am I going to have the time?'"

If she had taken the "DIY" approach, she may never have known that the gown was a Dior work and that it came from the designer's last collection. Nor could she have easily found potential buyers who'd understand its value. But for Augusta, the task was old hat: She recently sold a 1947 dress from Dior's second collection for $45,000.

A Sporting Chance
In a polar-opposite category, sports memorabilia, a Connecticut-based eBay seller recently listed a box of unopened 1964 Topps "Stand Ups" that he had picked up "at a tag sale" (price undisclosed). It's unusual to find these rarities in Mint condition: They were designed to be folded so that a die-cut player would "stand up" on a base.

Back in the day, kids would open and display Stand Ups as designed. To find them unfolded in unopened packs (120 in all) with an original retail display box is pure nirvana for today's sports collectors. The lot sold for $25,233. The packs were originally a penny a piece, so whoever bought them in 1964 spent $1.20.

As shocking as that $25,233 price may seem, the Stand Ups may have been a steal on eBay. The seller was at a disadvantage because potential buyers couldn't look at the lot and examine it. Several bidders actually e-mailed the seller and asked if they could travel to his house and take a look at the Stand-ups in person; the seller refused.

Wrote one potential bidder: "I live in Connecticut also; I want to know if I can come and look at the cards, so I feel more comfortable bidding this kind of money."

Seller: "Thank you, but everyone will be bidding pot luck, and so will you."

Because serious bidders couldn't look at the item first-hand, they couldn't feel comfortable that no one had tampered with the unopened packs. It may sound trivial, but to collectors, it's a major issue. As a result, the final selling price likely was tempered. (Even so, a ccording to a reliable source, the top bidder is from a major auction house, who likely figured there's still some headroom in the value of these rarities.)

"This is still a physical business," Flanigan said. "You can buy certain things comfortably off eBay, 2-dimensional things like postcards, stocks, or books. But eBay buyers aren't focused on really taking a chance because they're not seeing these things in person."

A specialty auction house, on the other hand, will run live auctions while also posting their catalogs online. Some even utilize eBay's Live Auctions, giving you the best of both worlds. But Flanigan contends that most of the business rounded up by specialty houses is still coming from their tried-and-true clientele.

He also concurs that the task of setting up your own little eBay sales business in your home office can be a great way to "unclutter" your life and to make some money doing it. Just understand, he says, that "there's no guarantee that buyers are going to show up. You might put something up one day and make $150, and put the same item up the next day figuring you'll get $125, but you make only $10."

Ultimately, Flanigan comes back to his favorite saying: "There's an old adage that goes, 'Anybody who represents himself as a lawyer has a fool for a client.'" It's the same in the antiques business, he says, if you try to become your own auctioneer without having the time, inclination and knowledge.

Larry Canale is editor in chief of Antiques Roadshow Insider and author of the books The Boys of Spring and Mickey Mantle: The Yankee Years/The Classic Photography of Ozzie Sweet.

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